


Time, Love and Tenderness

by totilott



Series: A Groovy Kind of Love [36]
Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: 1990s, Canon Jewish Character, M/M, Misunderstandings, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Time Vortex, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totilott/pseuds/totilott
Summary: Being the only person in a group who's never time traveled before is a strange realization. Even worse when minutes later, that isn't true anymore.And Ted who could never wrap his head around temporal science.
Relationships: Michael Carter/Ted Kord
Series: A Groovy Kind of Love [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1282328
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Time, Love and Tenderness

“You gonna explain it, or me?”

Booster gives him a look as they walk along the desert path, away from the parked Bug. “You think I've a better grip on this than you?”

Ted shrugs. “Time travel is your field, isn’t it?”

“It’s not my _field,”_ Booster scoffs as they wander in the scorching Arizona sun. “I’ve only ever gone between this era and mine.”

The sunlight gleams so brightly off Booster’s costume Ted has to squint whenever he turns to him. “So? That’s a whole lot more time travel than I’ve ever done.”

“He’s the Time Master, Ted! I’m like, a time _tourist.”_ They pass through a gate in the barb wire fencing. “And he’s a scientist. _And_ an inventor, so that’s your department.”

Ted shudders slightly, even in the heat. _Temporal science._ For all of Ted's branching obsessions and special interests, time science was never for him. It feels closer to some kind of ancient magic; A horrific, unknowable force mere mortals shouldn't fiddle around with. Dangerous and interwoven and beyond normal comprehension. People who dabble in it tends to get... weird, and he's weird enough as is. “You’re the one who knows him.”

“I mean we’ve... crossed paths but I don’t know if I _know_ him," Booster mutters, his suit casting strange reflected shapes on the sand and cracked tarmac. "And you’ve met him before.”

“Yeah, barely, years ago,” Ted murmurs, recalling some peculiar fifteen minutes at a charity gala, trying to politely engage the slightly stand-offish man in conversation. Reaching for a subject, Ted had asked if Hunter could summarize the grandfather paradox to him, and in the end Ted had to go sit alone in a dark room for half an hour to regain his grip on reality. _That's_ what temporal science does to you.

At last they reach the towering front door, metal plates scuffed and dulled by the blowing sand. It’s a bunker, or a complex, metal and concrete looking more like some kind of top secret army base than one person's private laboratory. There’s some kind of intercom panel next to it, and Ted presses the biggest button, halfway wishing that there'll be no answer.

“So _you’ll_ explain it?” Booster asks, looking up at the humongous door.

“What if he knows already?” 

“He’s a time traveler, Ted, not a psychic.”

“I don’t know, maybe he’s come back from the near future where we’ve already asked for his help.” Ted frowns at the intercom, mercifully silent so far. “Maybe something terrible happens when we do, and he knows, or-- What are you doing with your hands?”

Booster immediately stops his hands from moving and flattening against his sides at hip height, an occasional absent-minded gesture he’s done several times already after they exited the Bug. He rests his arms behind his back, gripping his wrist, and grins at Ted. “Ah. I kinda miss the leather jacket, to be honest. It was nice having pockets. Somewhere to put your hands when you're restless.”

“I guess Animal Man was onto something,” Ted remarks softly. “You could just keep wearing one, though.”

Booster smirks, glancing down at his gleaming suit. “Nah, that was a Conglomerate thing. And Claire would sue, probably.”

“Well, if it’s pockets you want I could sew you a lovely frilly vest or something,” Ted teases with a grin. “Your name sequined on the back in bright --”

There’s a deep klaxon, some kind of warning alarm making them both jump, and the massive doors start slowly parting, revealing concrete steps going down. There are pale, evenly spaced lamps flickering on the wall, but after standing in the blinding sun it seems more to Ted like a pitch dark hole opening in front of them, some kind of apocalyptic abyss. They give each other a look before descending the stairs in silence.

At the bottom is another set of doors, smaller, already open, and they walk into the lab proper. The air is cool and slightly stale, the ceiling so high above them it's hard to believe it's there at all. There are machines -- intricate computer banks and huge glass spheres and metal consoles with wires sticking out. They pass what looks like a couple of overturned car seats, but there are peeks of intricate microchip paneling where the fabric has been ripped.

Ted knows, intellectually, that he should feel at home in a workshop like this. This should feel comfortingly familiar to him. But he can’t shake the feeling that the technology seems... strange, nonsensical. Like it might be unhealthy to study it for too long. That's time tech for you, it's probably better not to understand any of it. They pass a squat metal tool trolly, much like the ones Ted has, but several of the tools laid out don’t even resemble any he knows. Strange angles and materials and nodules where there shouldn’t be, parts duct-taped together for purposes Ted can’t begin to imagine.

“Excuse me,” he calls out hesitantly in the cavernous workshop. “Mister Hunter?”

“Hm. Here,” comes a voice not too far away. Slightly hoarse, like a voice that hasn’t been used at all in several days.

They walk past another towering computer bank, finding some kind of nook with a workbench, a table stacked with all kinds of bric-a-brac -- books without covers, a threadbare stuffed bear, a paper bouquet, several winter coats, a mug advertising some kind of flea medication, and so on -- and an overfilled blackboard with a sea of scrawled, almost illegible writing, arrows pointing every which way. And at the workbench, with his back to them, seated on a paint-splattered wooden stool: A tall, somewhat lean man with unruly sandy blonde curls.

He's wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. He looks like... A deceptively regular person, not a master in command of mind-blowing temporal science at all.

“Hi. Hello,” Booster ventures with a grin, and Ted can hear the slight hesitation in his voice.

“Moment,” the man murmurs without looking up, and Ted and Booster stand in polite silence. Then at last the man turns around in his chair, looking at them with a pleasant smile. There’s a slight bagginess under the bright eyes, a hint of stubble on his chin, making him look a little older, a little more tired than Ted remembers him. “Booster, Beetle! Sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, I was a little caught up.”

Ted subtly angles his head to look past Hunter to see what he’s been working on. But it isn’t some weird, futuristic-looking piece of tech on that bench, nothing at all like what he expected. It’s Hunter’s red and green costume, and a spool of thread, and scissors, and all in all everything you’d expect in a normal late twentieth century sewing project. Ted finds the sight strangely comforting.

“Uh, no need to apologize, Mister Hunter,” Ted begins. “We only came here t--”

“You should call me Rip,” he tells him, those bright eyes looking at him.

“Oh, sure, of course,” Ted chuckles awkwardly. He’s not usually this formal with other heroes. Not usually this nervous with them, either. No matter what he feels about time tech, he reminds himself that Hunter -- Rip -- only seems to be a little bit older than him, though of course the title of Time Master implies a daunting level of importance. Ted doesn’t know too many Masters -- of anything, really. "Rip."

Rip gives him a friendly close-lipped smile and turns back to the bench, continuing his sewing. “Good. What can I help you guys with?”

“We’re here on League business, actually.” Ted can’t help but notice that Rip seems to struggle and fumble as he patches a rip in the knee of his time suit -- not helped at all by how Rip's right hand is fully covered in bandages, each finger taped up individually. “We’ve been... having some trouble with Vandal Savage. The rest of --”

“Ah. Savage,” Rip murmurs without looking up from his work, speaking so low it seems to be mostly to himself. Then he turns the leg of the suit, notices several of his stitches have gone through both layers, inadvertently closing up the opening of the leg, and he hisses through clenched teeth. “Oh god _dammit.”_ Deflated, he reaches for a small metal seam ripper and starts undoing his previous work.

“So, uh, do you need a hand?” Ted offers, a little unsure if it's okay to ask.

“Well, this one's no good right now,” Rip smirks, flexing his bandaged hand.

Booster angles his head, regarding it. “What happened?”

“Mm. Chronal burns,” Rip tells them, working the seam ripper. There’s a pause, as if he expects Ted and Booster to understand what those are, then he suddenly turns to them and smiles apologetically. “Uh. Suit got ripped. There was a small issue with a... A baby pterodactyl. It escaped into the time stream and I had to reach out into the live current with the torn glove.” He holds up his bandaged hand again, fingers spread. “Chronal burns.”

“Oh. I see,” Ted nods, confused. “Is it... Serious?”

Rip grimaces at his fingers, experimentally closing and opening his hand. “Well -- loss of skin elasticity and blood perfusion, slowed healing, a touch of arthritis. I’d say my fingers are about... Forty years older than the rest of me right now.” He studies his hand for a moment in silence, then nods resolutely like he’s made up his mind, and looks back up at Ted. “Forty years, about-ish. A few weeks of normal cell replacement and it should be back to normal.”

Ted looks at him for a moment. “Well, that’s... good to hear.” He gestures at the suit on the bench. “Seems challenging to sew like that, though.”

Rip groans softly through his nose. “Yeah. And I can’t quite figure out how to fix that hole in the knee.”

“You know, if you turn it inside out and join the edge of the patch to this side --” Ted leans over and picks up the fabric, angling it to show what he’s talking about. “Though the padding’s kinda dense. I’d do this with a curved needle instead, do you have one of those? Like a mattress needle?” He glances over at the tin of sewing tools, and exclaims happily when he spots just what he’s looking for. “See, it’s just a matter of aligning the edges and starting right where--”

Ted stops himself. When he turns he sees the quietly amused look on Booster’s face, and the good-natured attention in Rip’s.

“I’m sorry.” Ted grins, a little embarrassed, and stands back. "I just, uh... Like fixing stuff like this. I get carried away."

“Beetle’s kinda the master at this,” Booster smiles confidentially. “Not a tear he can’t patch up.”

That’s the kind of master Ted is. Patching Master. Lord of the thimble.

Rip folds his hands in his lap and sits up, his back straight. There’s something almost childlike in the posture, it reminds Ted an attentive schoolboy. He smiles brightly. “I don’t mind. I appreciate the help. You want the chair?”

“Uh, sure. If it’s okay.”

Rip gets to his feet and steps to the side, allowing Ted to slide into the seat and start threading the curved needle with dark green thread. Rip stands behind him, watching his hands with rapt attention.

Booster has strolled over to the overladen table, fingers brushing over the random assortment of objects in gentle curiosity. Out of the corner of his eye Ted sees Booster's hand pause by the mug filled with pens and knitting needles and other things, picking up a small, foreign-looking flag with stripes of blue and white and pink. Ted doesn't recognize it, and wonders idly what unknown nation it belongs to, some place in time. Whether it's a clue to where the mysterious Time Master was born. Booster apparently ponders the same thing, because he glances towards Rip for a moment, smiles, and then puts the flag back in the mug. 

“Not much I can do about Vandal Savage," Rip tells them softly, watching Ted pinning the patch in place. "Historically, I mean. He’s meant to be there. Even if he’s been part of history longer than most.”

“No, uh, we don’t mean _directly,”_ Booster begins, joining them once again. 

“He’s got some kind of cult going in France.” Ted sews with neat, tightly placed stitches. The material is thick and textured but flexible, like wool, or well-worn canvas. “He’s convinced them he’s this... folk hero from the middle ages, Frére Suveau. There was some kind of prophecy. Plans to conquer Europe, that whole thing.”

“The rest of the League are there now, together with the Europe division,” Booster continues, leaning against the desk. “Beetle and I were sent here, there’s -- Um. There was this ancient book, Savage is in it." Absentmindedly he picks up the other leg of the suit and studies it, and Ted pulls it out of hands in turn. "It’s proof, see. Shows that Savage was nowhere near France in the middle ages.”

“He was locked up in a Russian dungeon for several centuries, apparently. They thought he was a demon or something.” Ted squints in concentration, sewing a corner in place. “So it’s obvious he can’t have been that --”

“You want me to travel to medieval Russia.” There’s audible hesitation in Rip’s voice.

“No, no,” Booster grins and waves a warding hand. “Just Ann Arbor in 1984.”

Rip looks from Booster to Ted, pursing his lips like he’s struggling to find the right sentence to begin with.

“We just need the book,” Ted explains softly, feeling strange for begging for this kind of absurd favor from anybody. Asking another person to step out of time. “And the old League had it. They kept in a storage facility in Ann Arbor, so --”

“Time travel is an extremely complex thing, you know. Dangerous,” Rip tells them, but there’s no edge to his words. It’s more like he’s trying to patiently explain something to children. “It’s not a tool for...” He pauses, brushing his bandaged fingers through his curls. “No takesy backsies. I can’t do this for everyone who regrets getting rid of something.”

“But it’s important,” Booster pleads, leaning forward. “It’s _so_ important, it's the main issue. We can shut down this entire thing with just this book! Just one page.”

“Lots of violence and misery could have been avoided with time travel, you know,” Rip tells them, peeking over Ted’s shoulder. “But trust me, it’s nothing compared to the catastrophes careless time meddling would cause -- _have_ caused.” His demeanor changes suddenly, and he makes a pleased noise as Ted cuts the last thread with the pair of heavy scissors. “Oh, that looks seamless! What kind of knot did you use?”

“Oh. A, um -- a bullion knot.” Ted allows Rip to pull the pants out of his hands to admire it, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Rip. It’s just this one item. We even have the keys. It’s a matter of minutes.” Minutes in 1984, but minutes all the same.

“I appreciate the help,” Rip tells him with a weary smile, tossing the pants back onto the table. “But as I said, just because the League regrets getting rid of this book --”

“But they didn’t get rid of it.” Ted rises from his seat, facing Rip. “Nobody got rid of it. It just disappeared.”

Rip’s gaze snaps to him, eyebrows raised in interest. “Disappeared?”

“Yes, either at the end of ‘84 or start of ‘85, from what they told us.” 

Rip takes his place in the chair, not looking at them, brow creased in thought. The expression seems at home in his face, easy and effortless, like it’s how he spends most of his time. “Tell me about the circumstances.”

Ted looks to Booster, who only offers a subtle confused shrug of his shoulders. “It... went missing without a trace,” Ted explains, feeling like there’s not much he can add to ‘it disappeared’. It’s not like he was there -- this was years before _his_ League was even a thing. But Batman had kept meticulous records, and the frequent stocktaking at the storage facility were clear enough, as was Batman's investigation afterwards. “No trace of a break-in. No trace of anything, apparently. It just wasn't there anymore.”

“Anything else missing?”

“No. Just the book.”

“Has it reappeared anywhere else afterwards?”

Ted shakes his head.

Rip leans his elbows on the desk, pressing his palms together, fingers spread, and rests the tips of his forefingers against his bottom lip. He sits there for a moment in silence, long enough for Ted and Booster to exchange glances once again. “Well,” Rip murmurs. "That changes things."

“It does?” There’s genuine confusion in Booster’s voice.

Rip shifts his position again, tapping his fingertips on the wood of the desk like he’s doing calculations in his head. “It could be a coincidence, of course. Lots of people who might have taken it.” He turns and looks the two of them up and down. “But then you came straight to _me._ You went for time travel right away.”

“I mean, I imagine the League tried looking for it back then,” Ted says, feeling like this conversation has taken a turn without him noticing.

“Alright, let’s go to 1984.” Rip says it like anyone else would announce a trip to the park, bouncing up on his feet. “One minute, let me change.” Immediately he starts pulling off his jeans, revealing his long baggy boxer shorts underneath, pearly white, like something from the 1920s. 

“You -- You’ll do it?” There’s a puzzled but elated smile on Booster’s face.

“Seems it’s what I was always going to do. Probably,” Rip tells them in a pleasant voice, threading a leg into his newly patched pants.

“And you’re, uh, taking us with you?” Ted asks, trying to keep his voice calm and professional.

“Sure, you have the keys, you know what we’re looking for.”

“I mean we, we -- We haven't seen it in person or anything,” Ted argues weakly. "We've never been to this storage facility place either."

Booster looks at him, puzzled. "Elongated Man showed us pictures, though. And the layout."

Rip flashes them a smile and starts putting on his red and green jacket. "That's more than good enough for me." He zips it up, then reaches over the desk, picking up the curved needle and a spool of thread. The thread he puts into the jacket pocket, and the needle is carefully threaded into his jacket shoulder, just below the collar. "Always prepared," he smiles.

"Sure. Yeah." Ted nods, trying to push down the flare of anxiety that has rushed through his body these last few seconds. All the way here he kept telling himself that they'd come here just to recruit the Time Master's services. Give him the basics, send him off, and in another second he'd be there with the book. Like a Fed Ex service specializing in time travel.

But no, they're coming with. Of course they are. Time travel. Putting himself, his actual self, in the past. A time he already exists in, elsewhere.

He regards Booster in silence -- his excited grin, his delight at the success of their plea. Booster doesn’t seem worried in the least. But then Booster has time traveled before. Booster already exists in a time he didn’t.

It strikes Ted with ruthless clarity that he’s the only person in this room who’s never time traveled.

“You know, that _is_ nice.” Rip strokes a hand over the patched knee of the suit, then drops down into a crouch to test the range of the fabric. “I always forget ho-- Any particular time in 1984 we should shoot for?”

Ted stirs. “Uh. I think the last time the book was sighted was in late... October,” he mutters, trying to remember their mission brief. “So, uh, before then?”

“Step right this way.” There’s a strange, childlike energy in Rip's movements as he leads them to the central platform in his laboratory, the one adorned with a giant glass sphere. The door is open, folded down with translucent steps leading up, and the thick curved glass of the walls makes the two seats and the console inside look slightly distorted, like a shoddy funhouse mirror. "Just give me a second to do some calculations and look up a few things. Please have a seat."

Booster steps inside the sphere without hesitation, dropping down into what Ted assumes to be the co-pilot or passenger seat. Ted enters slowly, almost dragging his feet, then standing awkwardly in the center without a chair to drop into -- and he’s definitely not gonna call dibs on the pilot seat. The air feels a little warmer inside than it did in the lab. A lot more stifling. For a moment Ted ponders the CO2 buildup three adult men in a sealed glass sphere would cause if they were stuck in it for a prolonged period of time. They'd even pass out, eventually -- or worse. 

But no, obviously Rip must have thought of that when he built this. It’s got to have some kind of air exchange system in place, or maybe this isn't glass at all. Rip can build time machines, he wouldn't accidentally build a death chamber. 

And it's not the CO2 Ted is worried about. Not really.

Booster turns his head, admiring the console with a pleased smile, then pauses when he sees the expression in Ted's face. “Something wrong?” he asks in a low voice.

“No, everything's fine,” Ted nods, watching the distorted shape of Rip’s silhouette through the glass as their Time Master leafs through a notebook and fiddles with buttons the big console outside the sphere. “It's just I’ve... Never done this before.”

“Hey, just be glad it's Rip driving and not me,” Booster tells him brightly. “Way smoother ride. He knows what he’s doing.”

“But you know the controls, right?” Ted glances over the sphere’s control panel -- buttons and knobs and levers with hand-written sticker labels on them, scrawled ballpoint lines reading things like _vertical speed (HM-3)_ and _chrono-tachometer_. There’s a shiny black control column, like a joystick, in front of the pilot seat.

“I mean, I manage to bungle my way to this age with one of these, but --” Booster squints at the same labels. “I hadn’t the first idea what I was doing. And I think it was a later model, the one I came in certainly looked a lot more...” He pauses, searching for the word. “Polished than the ones I’ve seen from him so far.”

“Mm.” Ted presses his lips together and nods as carefree as he can manage. So they’re doing this in a time machine that’s not even in its final form. There are probably a ton of kinks and bugs that are yet to be worked out until one of these contraptions make it all the way to the 25th Century. Just excellent.

“All set?” Rip ducks in, offering another one of his pleasant, polite smiles. “Fair warning, I’m not gonna turn this around because you forgot to go to the bathroom first.”

Ted stares at him for a moment, unsure what to say, as Booster giggles. “Ready as we’ll ever be, Rip. Let me see what 1984 was like.” He squints up at Ted as Rip drops down into the pilot seat. “I have it on pretty good authority it's not like in the story.”

That one elicits a soft titter from Ted. Of course, Booster wasn't around yet to experience 1984. “That's right. A lot less depressing dystopia, a lot more Culture Club. Oh, and Ghostbusters.”

“Oh, good!”

Rip glances back as the sphere door swings shut, and begins plotting in their course with swift fingers. “Just so you know, there’s an eddy right at the end of November that year. It varies in size. We’re gonna have to get pretty close.”

Ted blinks at him. “An Eddie?”

“Yes, in the timestream. If it’s gotten bigger, it’ll take a bit of finessing getting around it.”

There’s a whirr from deep within the console, lights blinking. Ted stands at the back of the sphere, waiting for an explanation that doesn’t come. “...Who’s Eddie?” he asks at last.

“Ah, no, not like the name.” There’s an unfamiliar giggle in Rip’s voice. “Like an... eddy. Like in rivers, in fluids. You know, a swirl. It’s turbulence.” 

“Oh! Right.” There's... A _swirl._ In _time._ Ted feels much like he did at that party when he first met Rip. Like a kindergartner asking a professor about metaphysics, or something equally beyond his understanding. A thought he doesn’t have much time to ponder, because he blinks, and the outside world is fading, shapes and colors spilling over into each other like a chalk drawing in the rain. He looks on, wide-eyed, as the colors brighten, somehow, continuing to bleed and blend. There’s a surging feeling inside him, a flash of light, and then the colors streak past, streams of too-saturated colors all around them, magenta and fuchsia and crimson interspersed with bright streaks of blue and yellow. A feeling in the pit of his stomach that they’re going at an inconceivably high speed.

They’re actually here. In the time stream.

He sees Booster’s face angled up, looking at the swirls above them with keen eyes. “So why did you change your mind?”

“Hm, me?” Rip asks softly, his bandaged hand curled around the stick, a subtle juddering showing he’s continually having to maintain the direction (if you can call traveling through time a direction) they’re heading in.

“Yeah. About the book. You weren’t gonna help and now you are.”

“Well, um," Rip frowns slightly, picking his words. "Historically important objects that disappear without a trace at times where there’s little demand for them -- That's usually worth looking into.” Rip frowns in concentration at his needle indicators, and raises a hand to turn a dial a microscopic amount. “Not a sure sign, of course, but then when your first impulse is to ask a time traveler...” His voice trails off.

“Not a sure sign of what?”

“That we already went there and took it.”

“Wait, you --” Ted steps towards him, nauseous with vertigo from watching the swirls and streams all around them. “You mean you think the book disappeared because we -- _now._ You and me and Booster -- went there and took it? Before it disappeared?”

Rip nods, looking ahead. “I'm saying it’s not unlikely.”

Ted steadies himself with a hand against the back of Booster’s chair, frowning. “So, uh, we have to take it, making it disappear, which... Makes us have to go back and take it, which makes it --”

“Beetle.” Booster turns in his seat and gently touches his arm with gloved fingers. “I told you, with time paradoxes you just have to...” He shrugs and smiles, looking into Ted’s eyes. “Go with the flow. You can’t think too hard about it.”

“Mm.” It’s a sound of helpless defeat. Ted can only offer something like a wild-eyed smirk. 

_This is crazy. We all know this is crazy, right?_

Booster gives Ted’s hand a soft squeeze, and Ted nods, casting a glance towards Rip -- fully focused on piloting the sphere -- before he retrieves his hand. 

Another few moments pass, and then Rip gestures at the swirling view. “So. Coming up on th--” 

The sphere shakes and veers wildly to the side, although there’s no visual indication they’re veering, but the force, the way it unbalances Ted so he has to grip Booster’s chair with both hands to keep himself standing, is an obvious indication.

“What was that?” Ted chokes out, and the surge of dread in his gut is not lessened when he sees Rip’s wrinkled brow, the way he's suddenly gripped the stick with both hands.

“Like I told you. The eddy.” Another nauseating jolt. Rip forces the stick forward, but then hisses in pain and presses his bandaged hand to his torso. “It’s gotten a lot bigger, it’s -- It’s bordering on a vortex, actually.” His left hand is trembling with effort, trying and failing to hold the stick steady.

“You’re hurt,” Ted tells him, lamely. “Tell me what to do. I can steer for you if you tell me what to do.”

“No, it’s --” Rip curves his bandaged hand around the stick again with a grimace. “This requires experience. It’s like, uh, we’re a cork -- in an emptying bathtub and we need to avoid the drain. It’s a matter of minuscule movements. Using the momentum.”

“You’ve got this, Rip,” Booster tells him, but Ted can see the anxiety in his grin. “You’re the Time Master, you know how to master... time.”

The sphere shakes and shudders again, a violent jolt that makes Ted feel like they’re in a bumper car. 

“It’s... This pull is pretty bad. Worse than I thought,” Rip hisses through clenched teeth, bracing against the back of his chair. His hands are shaking against the stick, but Ted can’t tell if it’s from pain or the stick’s movements.

“You’ve got this, you’re doing fine,” Booster urges desperately, and moments later there’s a loud crackle from the console, several lights go out, while other indicators start blinking frantically.

“Ah. Shit,” Rip murmurs under his breath, and right now those are the scariest words Ted has heard in his entire life.

The sphere jolts again, and far, far ahead of them, the swirl turns into a dark pinprick, growing in size -- or getting nearer, or whatever things do smack bang in a time stream vortex.

It’s like watching something through a gauze curtain, blurred and shimmering, but when Ted squints he imagines he can see a room out there in the growing dot. A light, airy room with wood paneling, empty.

No, not empty, there are a few pieces of furniture. A dark, polished bureau against the wall, and a larger structure in the middle of the floor, something like... An upright piano? 

None of this is making Ted feel any less like he's losing his mind. There's a _piano_ in the time stream.

The dot, like a cubby hole, a tiny window, comes closer, and Ted sees shapes moving in that impossible room. Seated side by side in front of the piano. A little girl, maybe ten years old, fair straw-colored hair down her back, wearing an outfit out of some strange, shimmering material, the fabric subtly changing colors like an oil slick. And a tall elderly man next to her, white hair, dark clothes.

“Oh,” Rip murmurs, frozen in his seat staring wide-eyed at the approaching vision. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Music, distant and distorted like hearing sounds through water. Soft piano trills, both familiar and strange. Ted knows he's heard that piece of music somewhere before.

Rip stands up in his seat and leans over the console, pressing buttons with desperate urgency.

The music pauses as the girl raises a hand to impatiently flick a lock of hair out her eyes. The old man says something to her, and she continues playing where she left off. She's obviously talented, every chord impeccable, beautiful.

“Rip, this isn’t --” Ted swallows. “That’s not 1984, is it?”

“Um. No. No, no, it really isn’t.” Rip makes a huff of frustration, pulling at the stick with all his might, but nothing seems to happen other than a sad whirr from the console. “I don’t know what -- I don’t know why this is happening.”

Ted can't get over the fact that he knows this piece of music. In fact, he even imagines he might have attempted playing it, sometime in the few ill-fated years when his mother forced him to play the clarinet, hoping he'd turn out to be some kind of musical virtuoso in addition to everything else (which he wasn't. He really wasn't). He can hum this melody, he _knows_ it.

The hole in the time stream, the strange cubby hole they're looking through, is close enough for the music to come through clearer, and when the elderly man bends down to murmur into the girl's ear, they hear that too. "I'll only be a moment, my dear. Keep going. Mind your posture." And he stands up and heads for the door, limping subtly with every step.

The girl continues playing, alone now, and the sentimental melody is so familiar to Ted he feels he's going crazy.

Rip grimaces as he leans over the console, pressing buttons with increasing force, each tap of his fingers audible. "Don't pay attention to any of that," he tells them tersely. "It's just temporal flotsam. A random moment in time, random people."

Booster and Ted continue looking. The music stops abruptly again, and the girls sits back with a forceful huff of frustration, pulling her hair out of her eyes with both hands. She glances to the door, still closed, and then gets up and moves to the bureau with short, lithe steps. Inside she produces a pair of heavy scissors, and she stands for a moment, regarding them in her hand.

"We'll get going again any minute," Rip tells them, turning dials.

Having come to some decision, the girl gathers up her long fair curls in one hand and cuts with the scissors, right at the back of her head, so close to her scalp Ted worries she might hurt herself. But she doesn’t. The hair falls to floor, and straw-colored spikes remain. She cuts again at her forehead and temples, removing the offending strands that kept interrupting her playing. Then she stands up, brushing her palm over her unevenly shorn hair, and grins with wild joy.

“Oh! No, no!” The old man stands in the doorway, leaning against it like he's recovering from a bullet. “Oh, my dear! What have you done with your beautiful hair? Your recital -- Your parents-- !”

Rip stands up so sudden it makes the sphere vibrate. “Booster!” He doesn’t take his eyes off the console, only grabs Booster by the collar, jerking him to his feet. “Take my seat. _Now.”_

“What am I going to tell them?” the man squeaks, limping over and regarding the piles of straw-colored hair on the floor. “What are they going to think?”

Ted holds his breath, looking on. The vision is so near right now he feels he could reach out and touch these strange people. 

“I don’t know how to steer this thing!” Booster exclaims as Rip forces him into the pilot seat.

"Sure you do, you did it before," Rip murmurs, one hand gripping Booster's shoulder.

"Well, I didn't know what I was doing!" Booster casts a wild glance over the buttons and dials. “Look, if _you_ can’t get control of it, what makes you think _I_ \--”

“Grab the goddamned stick, Booster!”

“No, it’s okay, Dominic.” The girl smiles at the old man, patting his arm with precocious maturity. “I don’t think they’ll mind.”

Booster pulls the stick and the sphere jolts and judders, the colors of the room, the people in it, blending and bleeding gradually, until the hole is closed and they’re back in the sea of bright colorful swirls.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Booster intones in a strange, sing-song voice, both gloved hands wrapped around the stick, shoulders tense with anxiety.

“Keep her steady,” Rip murmurs, one hand still clutching Booster’s shoulder. “You need to adjust until you feel an angle where there’s... no pull to either side. That, that’s when we’re heading straight for the pre-programmed destination. 1984.”

“Well, it pulls everywhere!” Booster tells him miserably. 

“Where was that? The thing we just saw?” Ted asks quietly, half hoping the barely contained panic in the sphere will go away with some light conversation.

“Just keep trying, Booster. Tiny movements.” The sphere shakes and judders.

Ted exhales through his nose. “I mean, uh, _when._ I guess. When was that?” The wood paneling had a certain 70s' flair, granted, but the strange multicolored fabric of the girls' clothes seemed strikingly futuristic.

Rip glances imperceptibly back at him. “I told you, it’s not important. Just a random few minutes somewhere in time.”

Oh, good. They're just being thrown willy-nilly through the time stream. Where will they wind up next? The Triassic era? Ancient Rome?

“I can’t --” Booster hisses. “I’m serious, Rip, there’s no angle where...” His voice trails off as another pinprick opens far ahead of them. 

Ted squints into it, the bright colors around them burning his retinas, dreading what anachronistic vision he'll find. It’s another room, not the same one. A little smaller, bathed in warm sunlight. Pale blue wallpaper. More furniture.

There’s a bed with a bright orange cover. Posters on the walls with faces he doesn’t recognize. A strange upright translucent screen on the desk. And several people. Girls. Older than the one who cut her hair before. These are teenagers, in strange clothes, lounging around in distinctly teenagerly boredom. One is lying on her front in bed, propped up on her elbows. One is in a nearby chair. Two are sitting on the floor, facing each other.

The vision approaches gradually, like before. Ted sees the one on the floor, back leaning against the edge of the bed, dressed in a shiny green top and dark shorts. And it’s not a girl at all.

It’s Booster.

“Holy shit,” Booster -- his Booster, the one in the sphere -- murmurs.

The one in the room is... Younger than Ted’s ever seen him. An adolescent; Lanky, awkwardly proportioned with too-long arms and legs, shoulders distinctly wide but without a hint of the muscular physique that would tie it all together. He reminds Ted of a puppy, like a retriever that’s yet to grow into its paws and ears. If Ted had to guess, he’d say that Booster is about... fifteen. Fifteen, in a room full of girls the same age, his eyes closed and face turned up, his entire being glowing with blissful contentment.

One of the girls, a more heavyset one with dark purple hair, is straddling his long legs, frowning as she applies shimmering blue eyeshadow to his eyelids with a practiced hand. Her other one is resting on his golden hair, angling his head back.

“Okay. Ah. Okay,” Rip murmurs, slightly out of breath as he pulls his fingers through his hair. “I think I understand what’s going on.”

Ted looks on, transfixed. He’s never seen Booster this young. It’s not like Booster has had any pictures to show him. There’s a tenderness warming his chest, seeing this long-limbed, skinny child, awkward and gangly. his gelled-back hair, the barely-there hint of peach fuzz on his upper lip.

The door crashes open and another person thunders into the room, making all the girls jolt in surprise. Not puppydog Booster, though. He sits there, hands in his lap, brimming with quiet happiness.

 _“Mi-keeey!!”_ The name flows out with such familiarity it sounds like this girl has shouted that name a billion times before in the exact same furious tone.

Booster -- present Booster, the one in the pilot seat, exhales sharply with surprise, raising a hand to his mouth. “No...” he whispers.

The surprise entrance is a tall girl, wide shoulders, long blonde hair pulled back in an orange alice band. Her features are more elongated somehow, but it’s absolutely a variation on the same theme. So shockingly familiar, the similarity so obvious it makes Ted's heart jump in his chest.

Booster's twin sister.

“I told you to stay away from my makeup!” she hisses at him. “And go be with your own friends!”

“No, really,” the girl with purple hair pleads softly, turning to look at her, one hand still on top of Booster’s head. “We’re only using mine, I promise. And he’s being _so_ good, ‘Chelle. Like, really quiet.”

Young Booster opens his eyes, impossibly large and blue, framed by even bluer eyeshadow, and looks at her. “No, come on, Leena promised me she’d do that eyeliner thing later,” he tells her, voice uneven, mid-puberty by the sound of it. “Michelle, please!”

“Alright. Okay. Beetle!” Rip exhales like an exhausted man. “Beetle, your turn, you’re gonna be the closest.”

“Closest?” Ted tears his gaze away and he sees Booster, adult Booster, and the sharp, naked pain on his face, watching the tableau unfolding before them. Booster draws an uneven breath through parted lips, eyes wide, transfixed. 

“Booster.” Ted reaches out a hand, touching his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Booster doesn’t look away. His voice comes out so soft it can barely be called a whisper. “I -- I, I, I haven’t seen her in-- I didn’t think... I didn't think I’d ever see her again.”

“Look, we’re gonna crash right into that moment in another minute if you don’t switch seats,” Rip hisses at them. He all but shoves Booster out of the chair, who stands up, still looking on. “Beetle! I need you to take the controls!”

“Yes sir,” Ted answers on autopilot and drops into the seat. His head is spinning. If that’s Booster’s past they’re looking at, they’re very, very far away from 1984. And 1991 too, obviously. Why would the sphere take them here? Of all the random moments through time to show them, why would they plop down right into Booster's past?

He'd ponder it some more, except he blinks and realizes with a flush of ice-cold horror exactly what he's meant to do.

Steer a malfunctioning time machine.

“Okay, Beetle, pull. Pull towards you, right now,” Rip urges him, standing behind him. “Hard!”

Ted immediately complies, gripping the stick with both hands, and there’s a rolling sensation in his stomach as the vision jumps and bleeds and disappears, the dizzying bright swirls all around them once again. Ted stares ahead, so singularly focused he hopes giving everything his full attention will make up for the fact that he’s no idea what he’s doing.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Booster drop heavily into the seat next to him, cupping his face in his hands. He looks... Worn out. Haunted. Ted’s heart clenches at the sight of him, the uneven exhale, the grief in his hunched shoulders. Obviously completely unprepared to face something like that out of nowhere. Ted prays for a moment soon when they can talk, when he can try his best to comfort him. But first he has to ensure they get to where they need to be, and out of danger.

“Okay, uh, Rip, tell me again,” Ted asks, his throat thick with stress, the central stick juddering in his hands. “It was a matter of... Of finding the right angle, right? Find the right angle and we’re going where we were meant to? ‘84.”

Rip doesn’t answer right away, and the pause makes Ted's hair stand on end. He hears a heavy sigh behind him. “Honestly,” Rip tells them in a deceptively calm manner, though there’s quiet defeat in his voice. “I’m pretty sure navigation is, um, completely bricked right now. Pre-programming’s down. I bet in another moment -- Yes, there it is.”

Ted tries to calm his breathing as he spots another pin prick ahead of them. God, what’ll they see now? What ancient history or crazy future do they stumble into now?

Another room, of course. A dark room. Still shapes, like... Sculptures. No, smaller. Like models, or -- toys? There’s a bed with marine cover, a desk with notebooks and some kind of metal contraption. Ted squints, looking for people. That’s what the sphere honed in on before, right? There should be a person, or several. But the vision is still far away, only slowly approaching. 

Coming closer, becoming clearer. There’s a small collection of tin wind-up cars. A battered cardboard box for a board game... _Uncle Wiggily,_ in fact. Funny, Ted loved that game as a kid. There’s a Monkees poster on the wall above a star chart. A collection of plastic creatures and vehicles from the giant Hamilton Invaders play set littering the carpeted floor.

Ted clenches his jaw, the realization coming to him bit by bit. _“Rip,”_ he murmurs, voice hoarse. “That’s --”

“I figured as much. You recognize them?” Rip hasn't moved an inch, doesn't turn towards them. On the contrary, Ted realizes Rip’s been watching him with rapt attention for a while.

Ted’s mouth is dry. “Those are -- they were mine. That was _my room.”_

And there _is_ a person there, in the darkness. In the bed, under the covers. Not big, not grown up at all. So much smaller -- younger -- than he is now.

“Okay, I need you to concentrate on this next bit,” Rip tells him, his lean hand squeezing Ted’s shoulder in encouragment. “We’re gonna get pretty close. When I tell you to, I want you to snap the stick forward and to the left, about two o’clock, and you hold it there until we’ve come to a stop.”

“A _stop?”_ Ted’s eyes are fixed on the small shape under the covers, so still, asleep. Parts of him wants to see but he can’t. “We’re not -- We’re not stopping _here?”_

“We have to,” Rip tells him firmly. “I can’t do repairs in flight, and I’m pretty sure there’s a tachyon leak. It’s feeding off the chronal energy of whoever’s in front of the console.”

The room is so close now, so real. Ted hasn’t thought of that room in decades, but now it’s almost like he can taste the air in there. Feel the carpet, the way it used to feel under his bare feet.

Booster blinks at the room, at the obscured child in the bed. “So you’re telling me there’s no, like, button you can push to get us back to our own time?” He swallows, apparently trying to hide the same panic that’s blooming inside Ted. “Because, really, fuck that book. It’s not a matter of, of life and death. I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”

“Be ready, Beetle,” Rip tells him, leaning over him, eyes focused on his gauges and buttons. “Look -- We’ll stop here, we’ll get our bearings, and I’ll do repairs so we can get home.”

“Why -- here?” Beetle asks in a thin voice. “Why now? I mean, why _this_ year?”

“Well, it’s complicated,” Rip murmurs. “I guess you can say... Well, bodies store temporal information as we, um, go through life. They’re like little time packets, like DNA for moments in time. Some moments, for some reason, gets stored as bigger packets with lots more information, and this tachyon leak seems to --”

“No, I mean --” 

“Get ready, just a little bit more,” Rip urges him, not moving his gaze from the room in front of them.

Ted takes a breath, it comes out as an anxious little gasp. “I mean, why me? If we need tools, or, or _help,_ you don’t think the 25th Century would be a better choice?”

There’s a sharp exhale from Booster.

Rip’s face contorts into an odd little smirk. “Well Beetle... You’re the closest.”

“Closest?” And the meaning dawns on Ted as he says it.

If this isn't a quick little repair job. If they actually get stuck here. In this time.

“Look, maybe you want to go through the seventies again,” Ted argues in an unfamiliar, strained voice. They’re practically inside that little room now, the curtains billow even though the window is closed. “But if it’s all the same to you, I think I definitely would prefer --”

Rip’s grip clenches on his shoulder the moment his shout reaches Ted’s ears. _“Now!”_

Ted’s entire upper body shoots forward, jerking the stick up and to left just like Rip told him. He hadn’t realized he’d actually absorbed the instruction before his body performed it. The bleeding of colors is instantaneous this time, blurred in a nanosecond. Then there's a moment of utter darkness, and when Ted forces himself to breathe again, they’re still. Surrounded by trees.

Sunlight spills through orange and red autumn leaves, and more leaves are on the ground, crushed underneath the glass sphere.

“Okay,” Rip exhales, leaning forward to press buttons, flip switches. Ted can see the slight tremor in his hand. “Excellent. Excellent job, Beetle.”

Ted forces himself to blink. “I can... I can let go?” His hands are still wrapped vice-tight around the stick, pushing it up.

“Yes, I've shut the engine off. You can let go.”

Ted does so, slowly, stiffly, before he falls back against the cushioned seat.

“So, um...” Booster speaking, his voice just a little shaky. “Rip, where are we?”

“Not too far from what we just saw. That final maneuver was just so we wouldn’t materialize inside the room.”

Booster exhales. “No, I mean more... Where and _when_ are we?”

“Look, my readings haven’t made sense in a while. Better ask Beetle.”

Ted feels a broad warm hand curving around his upper arm, a soft squeeze, and it makes him stir and blink, feeling like he's slowly starting to reinhabit his own body.

“Beetle?” Booster asks in a soft voice. His private voice, a voice that says he’d address him as Ted if they were alone.

Ted wipes his face, his head spinning. Where _was_ that? “God, I... I don’t know exactly where. We -- we moved. We moved several times, and --” God, this is important. This is important but his memories feel all blurred and indistinct, racing through his head too fast to analyze them. He remembers that room now, perfectly. His bed, his toys, the view from his window. But he tries mentally placing it in a specific house and it feels like it could fit in any of them. “Chicago. We’re definitely in Chicago,” he adds, feeling like that isn’t much help. “And, uh, I don’t know. Late sixties? Early seventies? It looked like it could be... You know. Early seventies, maybe.”

“That’s something, at least.” Rip sighs, regarding the console. “Look, I need... I need a bit of space to pick this apart. You two wait outside and... Don’t wander off. Don’t be too noticeable.”

Ted snorts through his nose. Two brightly costumed heroes out of time in some quiet Chicago suburb, decades ago. Stealth is not an obvious option right now.

Booster pauses and brushes his knuckles against Ted's arm to get his attention. “I’ll join you in a moment,” he tells Ted just as the door swings open, letting in fresh fall air. Ted blinks, a little taken aback, then steps outside on his own.

They’re in a little copse. Trees on every side, a yellow, orange and green canopy above them. And the sphere nestled right in the middle, impossibly placed. He steadies himself against a tree, and the bark underneath his gloved fingers feels real and solid and they way it should feel. The way it'd feel at any point in time. Through the leaves he can make out a white-painted house, completely unremarkable except he immediately recalls walking past it twice daily, on his way to and from school.

Something inside him wants to keep walking, find that route that seems programmed into him through years of repetition, but he stops himself. Don’t wander off. Stay here, between the trees, the falling leaves, hidden. In this year he shouldn’t be in. Or -- well, he was already in this year. The problem is that there’s apparently two of him here now, both a child and an adult. Two of him, and one of them absolutely doesn’t want to be here. Maybe both of them don’t want to be here, depending on the age of the child in that room.

He sits down on his haunches, covering his mouth and chin in a gloved palm. _Okay, calm down Ted. Breathe._ It’s a short stop in a group of trees. They could be anywhere. Anytime. It doesn’t matter.

It was the better choice, probably. It would have been way more harrowing for Booster if they’d parked in _his_ past. If just the sight of his sister upset him so deeply, it would probably be torture for him to stay there any longer, ripping up wounds he's still trying to heal from.

Or... 

Or maybe he wouldn’t want to leave.

Ted exhales through pursed lips, glancing back at the two people in the sphere. Rip is sitting criss-cross in front of the console, fiddling with wires under an opened panel. Booster is standing there looking on, fingers interlaced and elbows resting on the top of the pilot chair. Two time travelers in quiet, secret conversation. 

He’s happy Booster didn’t have to ponder the option, stuck in the 25th Century instead of here. If they’d stayed there longer, maybe the temptation would have been too great. He imagines Rip getting the sphere working, about to get them all home, and Booster telling them to leave him behind. Telling them that he can't bear spending another year in a century unfamiliar to him.

Ted feels cold jabs in his chest just at the idea, and he grimaces. The guilt in his gut like a lead weight. Imagine being relieved that someone you loved wasn't given an option that could potentially make them happy. Imagine being that selfish, just because you can’t bear the thought of leaving them so completely. Of them leaving you.

God.

Maybe that’s what they’re talking about in there. Maybe Booster has realized it _is_ an option. Maybe right at this moment he’s begging Rip to take him back there.

Ted massages his temples with both hands. No, calm. You’re just freaking out because of... Everything.

Everything feels so out of his control.

Tachyon leak. Chronal energy. 

And still that piano tune keeps playing in his head, driving him crazy because he can't recall the title, or lyrics if there are any. He remembers the melody from years ago, he can still hum it. _Dum... Dum, da-dum dee dumm..._ His mother loved that song, and he hasn't thought about it in years. That he should hear it as they slingshotted through time unnerves him somehow. 

_Blue_ something. A melancholy little love song. 'Love is blue', that's right. That's the song. The future and the past all jumbled together. It's weird enough being here, in a year he was done with long ago. In a year he was never meant to revisit.

“Holding up?”

Ted startles and twists around to face the voice, but he’s still hunched down and the motion makes him fall backwards, dropping ungracefully down on his ass, cushioned by fallen leaves. He chuckles weakly at himself, deciding to stay seated. “Oh. Uh. More or less. You?”

Booster drops down next to him, facing the same way, and hugs his knees. “Sure. Yeah."

Ted turns his head, regarding Booster's fine profile against the trees and leaves. There's something restless in his eyes, a tension in his shoulders. "You looked pretty stunned back there."

Booster chews his lip, pressing his chin against a knee. "I just wasn’t... Prepared, I guess.”

This is when Ted would pull him close, kiss his temple, his cheek, pet his hair with gentle fingers; Use Booster's wonderful ability to be calmed by tender, loving stimuli to its fullest. But he can't. “I never knew you looked that much alike,” he tells him softly instead, not knowing if it’s okay to say. “I mean, I always assumed from the twins thing, but...”

“Mm,” Booster murmurs, not looking at him. He exhales, angling his face up, gaze resting on the roof of leaves above them. “You should have seen us when we were kids -- younger than that, I mean." He smirks, a melancholy tension in his face. "The teacher made us wear color-coded clothes to tell us apart. And then we’d switch during break just to cause trouble.”

The thought strikes Ted: How much of Michelle does Booster see when he looks in the mirror? What's it like, that constant reminder that she's gone, that he's the only one of the two left?

Maybe it’s a comfort, too. Carrying around a piece of her, even without photographs. When he wonders what _she_ would have looked like at twenty-five, he can make a pretty educated guess. Maybe that makes part of it easier.

Booster continues regarding the yellowing leaves above them, but it seems to Ted Booster’s thoughts are far away. Ted glances back at the sphere, sees the back of Rip as he’s hunched down, pulling at wires, and Ted sneaks a hand towards Booster’s where it’s resting against the moist earth. Curls his fingers around that gloved hand, squeezing it gently.

Booster stirs and snorts softly, returning to the present again. “I mean, nothing’s changed. I didn’t-- We just saw a thing that already happened. It was just a memory, really.” He glances to Ted, those same earnest blue eyes that the awkward teenager had, back there. “This gotta be way weirder for you, right? I mean, we’re actually _in your past.”_

Ted makes a strained little noise. “I’m trying not to think too hard about it.”

“Go with the flow,” Booster reminds him with a tired smile.

Ted chuckles. “Go with the flow.”

Birds twitter and sing in the trees. Birds that are long gone, by several generations, in 1991.

Booster rolls his shoulders back and breathes in the cool air. “It’s nice here.”

“Sure. We lived some nice places.”

“Wish I could have seen you, though,” Booster murmurs, looking at him with a fond glint in his eyes. “I would have loved to see little baby Ted.”

“Essentially this,” Ted grins, gesturing at himself. “But shorter.”

Booster angles his head back and giggles hard enough to make the bridge of his nose wrinkle, and even stuck here in a time they shouldn’t be, Ted feels that surge of quiet gratefulness, that they can do this together. On a mission, together again. Even as badly as it's going, as much as their current predicament makes him want to scream, at least the one he's stuck in time with, is Booster.

Booster smiles warmly at him as they sit on the leaf-strewn ground, everything dappled with golden autumn sunshine, and Ted sees that same gentle joy reflected in Booster’s face.

“You were adorable, though,” Ted tells him softly.

“Back there?” Booster snorts with a grin. “Little skinny scarecrow of a kid. Like a badly drawn stick figure.”

“With the girls crawling over you,” Ted teases, only feeling the slightest twitch of something that might resemble jealousy. “Clever ruse with that makeup thing.”

“No, I --” Booster murmurs, rubbing his jaw. “I kinda just genuinely liked the makeup. And the attention, I guess. I was their little dress-up doll as far back as I can remember.” He chuckles and mimes flattening fabric over his thighs. “They’d have me do little fashion shows with their clothes and stuff. I loved it.”

Ted regards him lovingly, both charmed at the mental image of child Booster beaming with joy at every bit of pampering and praise, and fascinated by the thought that Booster’s side gig as a model must feel oddly similar. He’s about to remark on it when Booster frowns and sits up straight, glancing towards the time sphere behind them, like he's pondering something.

It makes something knot up in Ted's chest again, and those fears from before flare up in him like a Roman candle. Was this all easy conversation to lead into something heavier? The fact that Booster wanted to talk to Rip alone. What could he want to talk about, without Ted, if it isn't to leave? To return to his own time? "What, uh --" Ted begins, trying to force a casual tone. "What did you and Rip talk about?"

Booster turns back and removes his hand from under Ted's, and Ted feels so clearly the absence of him. "Oh, just... Future time things."

"Sure," Ted whispers as he picks up a big red leaf and absentmindedly starts folding it with nervous fingers. "I wouldn't understand, I guess."

Booster pauses and interlaces his fingers, hugging his knees again. "Well, uh, that's what I don't know."

It's like getting stabbed with an icepick. Something cold and hard and radiating pain deep inside Ted.

Booster really plans to go back there. To his own time.

“Well, uh --” Ted replies in a strange voice, folding the leaf. It’s dry enough that it cracks and splits around the edges where he folds it. "Try me."

_He’s leaving me. He’s leaving and I’d be a fucking monster to beg him to stay. It'd be the most selfish thing I ever did._

Booster offers a tense smirk, squeezing his hands together. "I don't know, maybe this isn't the time for it."

"No, it definitely is!" Ted snaps back, looking at him, upset and hurt and in complete disbelief that Booster would decide on something like that without even telling him. "Shit, at least talk to me about it. Boos. S-sorry, but I think maybe I'm entitled to know if -- that you --" His voice falters.

 _"Me?"_ Booster stares at him with wide eyes. "What are you --? What did you think I was going to say?"

"That -- That --" Ted feels so small. Small and helpless and insignificant, and he's so angry that he's the one who has to say it out loud. "That you want to go back there. The time you belong. To, to the twenty-fifth century, that you --" He pauses for a short intake of breath, trying to keep his composure. But his composure was lost several minutes ago. "That you're planning to leave. Leave me."

Booster stares at him in confused disbelief for a moment. Then his expression melts into a wide smile, his eyes soft. _"That's_ what you think I was going to tell you?"

Ted swallows, trying to regain his grip on everything that's happening. He's a mess of worries and stress and pain. "You mean you're not --?"

"No!" Booster exclaims. "Jesus Christ, you think I --? _Teddy,"_ he tells him in a soft voice, grinning, and next thing Ted knows he's wound in Booster's strong arms, hugged close. "You're such a dolt," Booster tells him affectionately. "Like, jeez, we're stuck in the wrong year, can you worry about things that are actually real? How do you have the energy for this stuff?"

"Oh my God," Ted murmurs against Booster's shoulder, mostly at himself. From the sheer relief, the three tons that have dropped from his shoulders, his chest. He could cry from the sheer shock of it, from how stupid he is. He's won awards for his intelligence, his ideas, and still he manages to be so intensely stupid about everything else. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, comforted by the feeling of being held so tight. "I just thought -- I saw how upset you were at seeing that, that moment and when you wanted to talk to Rip alone..."

Booster giggles softly, easing out of the hug, and he touches his forehead to Ted's, their goggles softly bumping against each other. "You know, I think it's time you found out," he murmurs with a grin. "That sometimes I talk to people. Even when you aren't there."

"Oh my God," Ted giggles again, sitting back when he realizes Rip might see them. But he smiles awkwardly at Booster, wishing he could hold him more.

"Do you do that too sometimes? Have conversations with other people?" Booster looks at him like he might burst out laughing any minute. "Or am I the weird one?"

"Okay, yeah, enough already," Ted titters, wiping his cheek. "Alright, sorry, okay?" He lets out a cavernous breath, letting go of about seventy horrible things he's somehow had the time to think about these last few minutes. "I've just... Had a really stressful day so far, and -- I don't know, my mind's going weird places." 

Booster's smile fades, little by little, watching him with concern. "Rip knows what he's doing."

"Aren't you worried?" Ted asks him softly. "Like, you were never even in this year in the first place."

"I don't know," he snorts with a tired smile. "I feel like I've been in way more dangerous situations than sitting around in the woods with you."

Ted frowns at him for a moment. Then he closes his eyes, angling his face up to feel dappled sun warming his cheeks and nose. And he thinks about it, and he knows it's true. They're not running from dinosaurs or dodging laser robots or even up against -- whoever, The Calculator or someone. They're just momentarily stuck in a copse in the not-extremely-distant past. And Rip built the time machine, he definitely knows what parts need fixing the same way Ted knows how to fix the Bug.

All he and Booster have to do is stay put and wait for the Time Master to fix everything. 

"Hey, so, I wanna do a tiny bit of research here," Booster tells him with an odd smile, glancing back at the sphere. "We haven't played the Time Game in a while."

"I guess we haven't," Ted replies, a little surprised at the suggestion.

Their Time Game used to be a more frequent part of their conversations in the earlier days of their friendship. A way for Booster to catch up on what technology, science, vocabulary and so on are already a part of 20th Century life, with someone who won't tease him or talk down to him if he needs clarification on things that are second nature to contemporary people. Usually it involves Booster listing terminology or technology or even slang from his own time, and Ted answers to the best of his abilities, the things that sound familiar. An illuminating exercise for both of them, usually.

Ted squints an eye in thought. "You mean like, seventies' Time Game, or --?"

"No, like, now. No, I mean --" Booster makes a face. "Our time. Your time. 1991. What you actually know. Like, up to date stuff."

Ted titters softly at how challenging it suddenly is for Booster to clarify. But okay, actual late 20th Century knowledge. "Okay, shoot."

Booster glances back to the time sphere again. "Okay, do you know about words like, um... _Cis?"_

"Sis?" Funny, Booster's the one with a sister. Does a simple abbreviation like that disappear in a handful of centuries? "Like S-I-S?"

"C-I-S."

Ted blinks at him. "Organic chemistry?"

This time Booster returns the puzzled expression. Par for the course for the Time Game. "What?"

"It's a chemistry term. Geometric isomerism. Cis describes the grouping on one side of the carbon chain."

"No, no," Booster titters. "I mean, like-- Like trans. The opposite of trans."

"Yeah, exactly," Ted huffs, gesturing with a hand, trying to illustrate the different groupings. "Cis-trans isomerism. Trans, opposing sides of the carbon chain. What has that got to do with anything?"

Booster giggles, looking at him fondly like a pet owner looks at their particularly clumsy puppy. "Okay, imagine for a moment that there are things that have nothing to do with your degree in physics --"

 _"Impossible,"_ Ted grins and reiterates his frequently used argument: "Everything is physics."

"Maybe so, but if we're talking about, you know, gender--"

He's interrupted by a sharp crackle and hiss behind them, making them both jump and turn, and Ted flinches at the sound out of sheer experience. Live electricity where it shouldn't be. They see Rip stumble out of the sphere, clutching his arm to his chest, and moments later he drops to his knees on the soft earth, hunching over with a sharp groan. "Ahh god _dammit,"_ he hisses through clenched teeth, and Ted is already on his feet and by his side.

"Okay, what's the damage?" Ted urges, kneeling next to him.

"Oh, um--" Rip takes several deep breaths through his nose, not raising his head to look at him. "The luminiferous chamber is cracked. And a -- a broken helix casing, the pieces have --"

 _"Your_ damage," Ted tells him incredulously, gesturing at his clutched arm.

"Ah," Rip breathes, sitting back. "I just-- Didn't account for remnant superconduction. Just a -- A nice little shock when I bumped against the grid."

"How bad is it?" Ted doesn't wait for an answer and undoes the wrist button on Rip's jacket. From the way he's holding it, it seems obvious it's the forearm that got the worst of it. Rip sits on his knees, breathing deeply through his nose and compliantly watching as Ted rolls up the sleeve. "Are you feeling lightheaded? Trouble breathing? Anything else hurt, like your feet?"

"No, I'm fine, just --" Rip offers an embarrassed smirk. "You know. Just hurt like hell for a moment there."

"Trust me, I know," he murmurs, inspecting Rip's lean arm. Ted's inadvertently shocked himself more times than he can count working on his own inventions.

There's an angry red mark on Rip's arm, an inch in length but thin, like a whip welt. "It'll probably blister up, but looks like you got away before it got real bad. You need to tell us if you're feeling dizzy later."

"I will, thank you," Rip replies softly, pulling his arm back and unrolling the sleeve. "Still got a solid grip on first aid, huh?"

"Well, you know," Ted murmurs, suddenly feeling a twinge of self-consciousness. "Comes with the job."

"You're pretty great at it," Booster murmurs fondly behind him. "Blue Beetle, fixes both costumes and the people in them. You know he got me through a stab wound?"

Rip gets to his feet and offers an attentive smile. "Did he?"

"Okay, now we've triaged your arm," Ted interrupts, stumbling to his feet. "What’s the verdict, Rip? Can you get us home?”

“Uh, good and bad news." Rip massages his arm, sending a glance through the trees. "Good news is, I’ve found the problem, and I’m certain I can fix it.”

Ted gets to his feet, brushing damp leaves and dirt off his legs. “And the bad news?”

Rip offers an uneasy smile. “Field trip.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, couple of things. One, we need to know exactly when and where we are. I can’t program the navigator if I don’t know our starting point.”

“What, so we knock on doors?” Booster smirks, standing up as well. _“Excuse us, madam, would you mind telling us the date?”_

“What else?” Ted queries, regarding Rip.

“I need tools.”

Ted makes a face, remembering the alien-looking contraptions in Rip’s lab. “What kind of tools?”

Rip leans against a tree and squints, searching the field outside their little tree-covered hideaway. “Any kind I can get hold of, really. Obviously I’m not hoping for the precision chronal instruments I really need, but at least if I had a couple of adjustable wrenches, a vernier scale, screwdrivers..." He taps his bandaged fingertips against his thumb as as lists them. "Oh, and I need some replacement parts, but I think if I got hold of a voltmeter I could scavenge those.”

Ted massages his jaw. Even if he doesn’t know exactly which of his past neighborhoods they’re in, a thought immediately popped into his head, a source for that kind of equipment. But it's more or less the last place he wants to go, so he instead he tells them: “Right. Field trip it is.”

Coming out of the copse feels like a punch to the memory center of his brain. He stands for a moment, wide-eyed and overwhelmed. He remembers this field, this street. The weeds peeking through cracked tarmac. How he skinned his knee on that street corner, the piece of hard candy his mother gave him to comfort him.

“Oh my God,” he murmurs, walking on with the other two trailing behind him, and he's turning every which way, taking in the houses with wide eyes. “This is all so --” That’s Mrs. Eilenberg’s house. He used to walk her dog for her. And opposite is where Eli lived; He ate so many earthworms on a dare he claimed he'd started to enjoy the taste.

“Do you know where we are?” Booster asks somewhere behind him.

Ted nods without looking back. “Yeah, this is, uh -- Uh. _Balvadere!”_ His parents lived here when he was born. It was all he knew, once. “They tore all of this down. It’s a, uh, factory district now. This street’s called... Yes. Wellesley Drive.”

The streets are lined with small, mostly one-story houses. Many of the windows are dark, but through some he can spot lights and moving shapes. People he hasn’t thought twice about in decades, many who might be long gone, but here they all are. Or at least the people who aren’t at work or at school. It’s midday quiet, only mothers and pensioners and toddlers at home. Through an open window he can hear soft music playing, _"...Just let bygones be bygones, don't think about tomorrow, girl, our future's bright..."_

“I’m guessing this neighborhood isn’t too used to brightly colored heroes,” Rip murmurs as they make their way down the street. “So let’s not bring too much attention to ourselves.”

Ted stops, staring wide-eyed at a large pale splotch in the middle of the street, powdery residue almost washed away by rain and traffic. He remembers this spot. His favorite launching place for baking soda bottle rockets. How many days since his younger self stood here, excitedly prepping another launch?

Booster walks up to him. “So how old were you when you lived here?”

“Like I said, they lived here when I was born, and we moved when the company started taking off, so -- Until I was eleven.”

Booster glances back at Rip. “That narrows it down to sometime within eleven years, then.”

“Less than that,” comes Rip’s soft voice behind them. “That wasn't an infant's room we saw.” He taps Ted’s arm with two fingers. “Beetle. About the tools.”

“Yeah, any hardware stores around here?” Booster asks.

“No.” Ted feels a pressure inside his chest. A weight getting heavier by the minute. “But I have a pretty good idea where we can find some tools.”

* * *

They're almost there, and Ted can feel his pulse beating against his temple. The house getting closer with every step. But he feels himself slowing, and he turns to Rip.

"Look, uh --" he begins, uncertain how to say it. "Rip, I know we -- we haven't worked together before, but I figure since you're... Uh." 

Rip regards him in his usual calm manner, smiling attentively.

"You're going to see, you know, things about my past. My life." A past Ted isn't too keen on seeing himself, but if they're going to get home they need those tools.

"Oh," Rip exclaims softly. "You're thinking identity-wise?"

Ted nods. This part always feels a little fraught, even with other heroes. Usually real names, real identities -- those are mutually brought up when you've worked with someone for a long time. Or when... When you really feel you can trust them, like Ted did with Booster, years ago.

"Well, you can imagine I..." Rip interlaces his fingers, his bandaged and his bare hand together, like a child pondering something. "My area of expertise tends to make me more knowledgeable than most, you know, about identities." He offers a wide smile. "I promise I'm very good at keeping secrets."

"Yeah. Okay," Ted nods, more ill at ease than he can explain. Something feels so... Lopsided. "So I figure we might as well, you know..." He reaches out a hand, taking gentle hold of Rip's bandaged one. Shaking it. "I'm Ted Kord."

Rip's smile seems almost amused. "Ah, of course." It wasn't exactly the reply Ted anticipated, though his name is still famous enough he's used to some amount of surprise. "I'm still Rip Hunter."

Ted tries not to grimace through his smile. "Obviously."

Sure. That's what feels so unnatural. Ted in this... vulnerable position, about to show his travel companions God knows what, and Rip -- He's still the secretive Time Master. The one no one knows anything about, because that's his whole deal. Ted's heard it enough times, that Rip needs to keep every aspect of his life, including his real name, utterly secret in case his enemies might go back and throttle him in his cradle or something, but then... They're all in this business, they all have to be careful. And the revealing of identities, that's not just a sign of trust, it's mutual assurance. I keep your secret, you keep mine.

But not so with Rip. He's always been a lone wolf. Keeping both his own secret, and everyone else's. Taking, offering nothing in return.

But that can't be helped. Ted nods grimly at him, and they continue down the street in silence.

He spots the mailbox right away, declaring _KORD_ in painted letters in his mother's fine handwriting. Something knots up in his gut. His gaze travels up the gravel drive in to the squat, yellow-painted bungalow with the garage built onto the left side. The house looks more worn down than he remembers it -- but then, it was the only home he had ever lived in, before his dad’s position demanded a more impressive home base. To him it was their own perfect little kingdom, way back when.

There's a purple mezuzah by the door, familiar lace curtains in the windows. He squints at them, trying to ascertain if there might be someone inside. The glare from the sun makes it close to impossible to see if the lights are on in there. But there’s no one on the narrow porch, no one playing on the small patch of yellowing lawn on the side opposite the garage.

Good. Good, Ted realizes he really doesn't want to see any one. Doesn't want to catch even the tiniest glimpse of... 

He takes the lead, moving hunched-down in a wide arc, close to the patchy hedge, until they’re gathered at the side of the closed garage. He stands up to peek in through the small, dusty window there.

No sign of his dad’s beloved pale blue Plymouth Valiant. Ted makes a face at the mere memory, how incandescently furious his dad had been with him that time Ted scratched the paint tripping over in the garage to fetch some tool or other for his dad’s project. Even before his dad had realized what had happened, Ted had burst into tears -- more from the guilt and fear than the pain of his busted-open knee.

But the car isn’t there, which should mean his dad isn’t home. Thank God. The thought makes Ted feel a lot easier. He presses a cheek to the glass and he can’t find his mother's bicycle in there either -- the dark red bicycle with the floral-patterned pillow on the bicycle rack, where he’d sit comfortably holding onto his mom for outings to the nearby bakery or visits to her friends.

No car means no dad, no bicycle means no mom and presumably no little Ted. Good.

“Seems like the place is empty,” he murmurs at his companions.

“But we saw Beetle -- young Beetle -- sleeping in there when we arrived, didn’t we?” Booster asks in a hushed tone. Ted appreciates how he automatically keeps referring to him by his moniker around people not in their inner circle, though it definitely feels odd hearing his younger self called Beetle so many years before he ever donned the tights.

“Actually, that maneuvering we did as we materialized --” Rip subtly mimes the way Ted had jerked the stick forward. “We displaced ourselves -- not only in space but in time as well.” He turns his head, regarding the way they came from. “Judging from the distance, I’d say we might be a day or so away from the event we saw.”

Okay, fantastic. Empty house, no one he needs to face or even think about. Now they only need to get in there, get the tools, and they're gone. Keep their heads down, pretend it's any old house. He grabs hold of the handle to the side door, noticing how much smaller it seems in his adult hands, and jiggles it. Locked. Of course it is. And it's not like he has his lockpicking tools on him.

“Rip,” he urges in a quiet whisper. “Do you still have that sewing needle?”

Rip startles upright, fumbling at his shoulder. He flinches with a soft hiss, then pulls out the curved needle and hands it to Ted, before he raises his hand to his mouth and sucks on the pad of his middle finger, watching Ted start working the lock.

It's hardly the perfect tool for it, and he can feel the pressure of doing this with an audience. Ted sets his jaw, trying to find some calm, focus entirely on his hands, the sensation of the needle butting up against metal, trying to visualize the construction within.

“So, Beetle, we don’t know the exact consequences of us being here,” Rip murmurs, watching him with keen eyes. “So you’re going to have to act as our timeline guide.”

“Sounds complicated,” Ted replies quietly, pulling out the needle and trying again at a different angle.

“Do you have any memories of your home being burglarized when you were young? Or the adults in your life discussing intruders, anything like that?”

“No. Not as far as I can remember.”

Rip continues, regarding him. “Okay. Do you have any memories of _seeing_... someone like us?”

Ted snorts, grimacing. “Of course not.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

Ted pauses his work, holding the needle in place, and turns to give Rip a look. He gestures at all of them, their bright costumes, his and Booster’s cowls. “I’m _pretty sure_ I’d remember something like this,” he intones in a strained voice.

Rip nods with a neutral expression, apparently ignorant of Ted’s disbelieving tone. “That’s good. That’s our guideline. No one sees us, we leave no trace, we put back whatever tools we use.”

“I don’t really understand,” Booster murmurs, glancing towards the empty street. “Like, I get not changing the timeline in a major way, but _if_ some tools should go missing and the family writes it off as theft... What’ll change, other than Beetle having some vague new memories?”

Rip makes a soft little hiss. When he speaks, there's an obvious tension in his voice. “Thing is, if I’d known we’d be heading to -- whenever we are, I’d have done research, looked for what significant events and people and items might possible be situated right here, right now. But we don’t know anything at all.” He gestures at the locked door. “We don’t know the significance of anything here. We could severely change the timeline if we're not careful. Change Beetle's life.”

Ted feels Booster’s eyes on him, the sudden nervousness in his posture.

“Maybe the notion of a burglary at his young age affects him so deeply he grows up to become, who knows, a policeman?” Rip gestures weakly at him. “Or a burglar himself? He might never become Blue Beetle at all, and suddenly we’ve not only changed his life, but the lives of all the people he’s meant to meet, the events he’s meant take part in.”

“Jesus,” Booster murmurs, blanching. “I’m not going to touch a single thing in there.”

Ted feels an odd smile appear on his face as works, an unexpected relief in his heart.

That’s what Rip’s saying, right? He is who he is supposed to be. He’s living the life he’s supposed to live, right now.

All of them, right where they should be. Except right at this moment, in the wrong year, but otherwise, yeah. In general. Imagine not carrying around that doubt. Imagine knowing you've clicked right into the path you're supposed to be in. Your choices were the right choices.

The bolt in the lock creaks and slides in its groove, then almost immediately there’s a satisfying click.

Ted stands up and pushes the door open. They’re met with cool air and a familiar smell of grease and oil. Rip walks in first, like a man on a mission. Booster stands still, looking at Ted with silent worry in his eyes. 

Ted gives him a reassuring smile and slides his hand along Booster’s back, urging him inside. The house is empty and they’re less likely to be spotted in there, anyway. Get the tools, go home, know that you are exactly the person you're supposed to be.

Some of his careless attitude seems to melt right off him as he crosses the threshold and sees... Everything, the way it used to be. Even with the shelves on the wall, the crates and various bric-a-brac, the garage feels strangely empty, as it always did without his dad’s car in there. Along the far wall, away from the wide garage door, is his dad's workbench, the wooden top stained and scratched from his multitude of home projects, pet engineering experiments. He remembers that chair, the imposing sight of his dad’s back as he worked, a warning never to disturb him.

The bench is empty of tools, though, except a tray of nuts and bolts of various sizes, and at the end by the corner, a battered-looking hammer and a bent screwdriver. Ted huffs in surprise at the sight, at the flood of memories. That corner over there, the other chair, the tall wooden stool. Built up further with a grease-stained pillow. Where he’d sit alongside his dad and play with his sturdier tools (because he might have broken the more intricate ones) or watch for hours in silent awe as his dad put together components or sketched out his ideas on large sheets of paper.

“There’s not much here,” Rip tells them, looking around. “Where did you keep the tools?”

“Uh--” Ted murmurs, glancing around the room. “Fuck. In there.”

They all turn to look at it, the massive metal chest in the corner. Welded steel plates from the floor and up to hip height, an equally dense steel top, and the mother of all padlocks on the front.

Of course. His dad would borrow equipment from work; He’d lock up his most secret inventions when he was planning to break away from the company that employed him. Security was always on his dad’s mind.

“Oh. Well, that’s a problem,” Rip tells them blankly.

“I don’t suppose you used to have a spare key hidden under the door mat or something?” Booster ventures in a forcibly cheerful tone.

“No, there was... There was only one key,” Ted groans, deflated. “He kept it on a short lanyard in his wallet.”

"Could we carry it with us?" Booster muses again, and Ted and Rip give him a look. That thing probably weighs more than all their weight combined, more than a car. Several cars, considering all the metal tools inside it. "Guess not."

“Okay, uh --” Rip sighs, glancing over the boxes and unfinished metal structures on the shelf against the wall. “I’ll see if I can find _something_ I can use. If I can’t, we might have to start breaking into the neighboring houses.” He looks to Ted and Booster, and he seems even more tired than before. “You root around and see if you can find something definite that’ll tell Beetle the date. A newspaper or a significant life event -- anything.”

“Got it,” Ted nods. His body feels heavy as he moves a mid-sized cardboard box and starts rooting through the contents. A hand-pump, a broken bicycle chain, the base of a table lamp. There was no shortage of broken items his dad would save in case he could repurpose them in one of his home projects.

Definite date. God, he has all these memories, but how does he place them in specific year? He tries to zero in -- bottle rockets, his mom’s lace curtains, sitting with his dad at the workbench. They’re just... freely floating memories, nothing to put them in order.

He guess he must have been older than, say, _five._ He probably wasn’t allowed to waste his mom’s vinegar and baking soda at five. But then he was always told growing up how he was an eerily gifted boy, reading and doing additions while other kids were still getting potty trained. The games in his room -- when did he have those? They weren’t too well off while they lived here, who knows what toys and other things they bought second-hand. Some of those toy cars looked older than the sixties, too. They might even have belonged to his parents. You don’t think too hard about these things when you’re a kid.

“You’re doing good,” Booster murmurs softly next to him, and Ted realizes the growing anxiety inside him must be evident in his face. “This can’t be easy for you.”

Ted flashes him an uneasy smile. “It's just a house.”

“Good thing they're gone for now.” Booster glances towards the closed garage door. “Less chance of fucking up your past up when they’re not here to find us.”

Ted snorts. “That really got to you, huh?”

Booster nods, frowning at him in the dimness of the room.

Ted puts back a box and looks into Booster’s blue eyes with a smile. “Look, I don’t know too much about this time travel stuff, but I’m pretty sure the things that lead to my choice of career were important enough not to be derailed by a missing screwdriver.”

Booster makes a face. “I’m just looking at you two tearing through the stuff here and I wince every time you move something, like -- God, what if that’s it? What if that box being half an inch to the left messes it all up?”

“Look, I’m still here, right?” Ted raises a hand to lightly brush Booster’s hair back, an innocent gesture, something nobody would think too much about. A brief point of contact instead of embracing him, kissing him to reassure him. “I’m still the Blue Beetle. And a second Rip hasn’t torn through the door, yelling at us to stop before we fuck it all up.”

Booster giggles softly.

“It’s gonna take more than a cardboard box being half an inch to the left before I --”

The moment Booster glances up and past him, the smile is gone from his face. His eyes widen in horror, and Ted realizes at the same moment that the sound of Rip’s rustling and searching has stopped cold as well.

Ted spins around, an ice-cold flush of panic in his veins, and he sees what his two travel companions are staring at.

The door leading from the garage into the house is open, and in the opening, his little bare feet on the concrete floor, a plump body wearing orange one-piece pajamas with little cartoony planets and shooting stars on it. 

If Ted had to guess, he’d say someplace between... six and ten years old. He can so easily recognize the unruly curls, the wide brown eyes, taking in the scene with evident shock.

Little Ted Kord staring back at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, Rip -- the comics never did you any favours. So instead of being very comic accurate and giving him zero personality (beyond grim and mysterious and full of exposition), I imagine him more as a man of contrasts, outwardly calm but brimming with childish energy, a little fitful and odd -- simply because I can't imagine experiencing life in a non-linear way and not turning out a little bit unusual. And maybe those traits get stronger when he's, you know, around people he knows extremely well in the future but who don't know *him* yet.
> 
> If you have extremely good taste, you might also have noticed I referenced the best time travel joke ever from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 
> 
> **[Songs:](https://open.spotify.com/user/tilly_stratford/playlist/4SqomvmhyncWPEAobYUZ88?si=DNXWufsLSs29KqRywW2U9A)**  
>  Love is blue - Paul Mauriat  
> Hold me tight - Johnny Nash  
> Time, love and tenderness - Michael Bolton


End file.
